But these attractions aren’t just tourist gimmicks – they represent the key ways Costa Rica is preparing for the future.

As the world warms, Costa Rica will likely depend on its carbon-sucking national forests. Similarly, as the price of fossil fuels goes up, the country will lean more and more on sources of clean, renewable energy.

Check out the numerous ways Costa Rica is setting an example for the future.

It’s a hotspot for wildlife, and the country doesn’t forget it.

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Erin Brodwin/Business Insider

More than 500,000species of plants and animals call Costa Rica home. That’s just about 4% of all of the world’s species.

Costa Rica is among roughly 20 countries who rank as having the highest biodiversity on the planet. Part of it owes to its spectacular location between two giant continents – North and South America. The country also is estimated to have the highest sheer number and diversity of plants and animals for its size, meaning it’s the most dense country for biodiversity in the world.

During my visit, I got to put my finger on a feeder at a hummingbird sanctuary and watch the bird land on my hand.

It’s figured out how to run without fossil fuels.

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Erin Brodwin/Business Insider

Costa Rica recently made headlines when its state-run utility company said it had gone a full 76 days without using fossil fuels, beating their own record of 75 days last March. It’s the longest historical record for a country powering itself entirely on renewables.

Most of the country’s renewable power is geothermal (the country is a hotspot for volcanoes, which engineers can tap and siphon to the grid) but sizeable portions are hydroelectric. The remainder are wind and solar. Keep in mind that its small population – just under 4.9 million – means it doesn’t have to generate as much energy as most nations.

The country also has plans to be entirely carbon neutral (meaning it would put out just as much carbon as its forests and other carbon-sucking resources suck in) by 2021. They first began working toward this goal in the 90s, when the government taxed fossil fuels and put 3.5% of all that money towards its national forests.

A large portion of the tourist industry is focused around educating people about the country’s natural resources.

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Erin Brodwin/Business Insider

Costa Rica’s ecotourism boom got its start in the 1960s, with scientists flocking to the country to study biology and environmental science.

The industry took off in earnest about a decade later, with the country quickly expanding its national park system to include 70 protected areas. Today, roughly 20% of the country is classified as a national forest or reserve.

The photo above is from inside Manuel Antonio National Park, the country’s smallest national park. Despite its tiny size, Manuel Antonio is unique for its dazzling wildlife diversity, with close to 300 mammal and bird species calling the park home.

It’s home to one of the world’s most important sloth sanctuaries.

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Christopher Westling / Business Insider

Even the Costa Rican 10,000 colones bill (roughly US $19) is enshrined with a sloth, the slow-moving furry mammal of two or three fingers.

Costa Rica is home to the the world’s most important sloth sanctuary in the world, called the Aviarios del Caribe Sloth Sanctuary. The sanctuary specializes in caring for wounded and abandoned sloths, and has released about 130 animals back into the wild. They currently house roughly 350 sloths.

Here I am with Duggar, a three-fingered brown-throated sloth, at the Sanctuary.

And the sloths that live there are adorable.

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Erin Brodwin/Business Insider

There are 6 species of sloths in the world, and two of them are considered threatened – while the pygmy sloth is classified as critically endangered, the maned sloth is classified as vulnerable. The species I got to hang with were brown-throated three-fingered (previous slide) and Hoffman’s two-toed (above).

The signs around the Sanctuary used the word dedo, or finger, instead of toe to describe the differing sloth types. Judy Avey-Arroyo, who founded the Aviaros Sloth Sanctuary, says this is more accurate, since all sloths have three toes, while the appendages used to distinguish them are on their hands.

The national tourist industry focuses on employing local residents.

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Erin Brodwin/Business Insider

When I traveled with my partner, Chris, across various regions of Costa Rica in late August, I was impressed by how many of our guides and the wildlife experts we consulted with were born and raised in the region and had found work focused on conservation and wildlife preservation in their local communities.

Other partnerships link environmental groups with universities and tourism programs. For example, the Monteverde Institute, an environmental research group, partners with Cafe Monteverde, the coffee cooperative that we visited, to employ locals and educate visitors.

The most recent Global Green Economy Index (GGEI), produced by the US consulting firm Dual Citizen, looked at 60 countries and 70 cities and ranked them based on their overall green economic performance, which includes energy efficiency, climate leadership, and investment in clean technologies like recycling, renewable energy, and green chemistry.

While the GGEI is recognized as a leading international measure of the green economic performance of many countries, researchers at Yale (who also produce their own green country ranking each year) have criticized it for having limited geographic coverage.